The Messenger
by thewasofshall
Summary: Years later I will remember this moment for more than just his death; it's not every day you learn that you're in love with Superman. One-shot written for the "Superhero" contest and expanded with companion pieces; AU/AH.
1. Fallout

**Superhero Contest**

**Story Name: **The Messenger

**Penname: **thewasofshall

**Rating****: **M (for language)

**Word Count****: **3,389

**C2 Page:** fanfiction. net/community/Superhero_Contest/81828/

**A/N:** _The following one-shot is a complete work of fiction; all character names and personality traits have been modified from those created by, and copy to, Stephenie Meyer._

_All chapters were beta'd by Project Team Beta; inspiration for backstory and powers was taken from __Sky High__, The Fantastic Four, __The Incredibles__, __Turnabout__ by __Margaret Peterson Haddix_, _True Blood__, and __Watchmen__._

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The moment he was shot, I felt it – this stabbing pain against my sternum that had me rubbing my chest so hard I wondered if I'd shock someone the next time I touched skin. Except I didn't know that's why it hurt in that exact place at that exact moment – not until hours later when the police came and told me what had happened. Even when it was too late to do anything, too late to touch warm skin or say goodbye and have him still hear me, I made them take me to the body anyway. I couldn't have the last time I see him be with too many flowers while he's in his wedding tux – not when I wouldn't have a white dress to match – but he wasn't even there when I pulled back the sheet. Just another gray corpse with a bullet wound.

Then I went home to call Emmett McCarty and make him explain to me what the fuck my fiancé was doing around guns at 11:37 in the morning.

* * *

He stalls underneath the portico, and I can see his breath cloud up as he exhales into cold January air. Then he looks up and the light casts a sickly glow over his cherubic face, and I want to punch him for simply breathing in a world where Edward doesn't. "Can I come in, Bella?" He pauses, shifting from foot to foot while breathing into cupped hands. "I don't think this is going to be quick."

I nod, step aside to let him in, and then slam the door shut. The Christmas tree I still haven't taken down is now brown and shedding, but I like the way the multi-colored lights shine on the yellow walls and make everything look like it's covered in vomit. I feel the tree's heartbreak this way, its loneliness as its purpose is slowly made obsolete. And I don't think I can take another absence defining what is now normal. If I'm already going to wake up alone, then I want to see that goddamn tree in my puke-colored living room, not an empty spot where something used to live. I already feel empty inside anyway; I don't want the reminder.

By the time I sit one cushion away from Emmett, he's already pouring his second shot of Jameson. I don't blame him; I probably wouldn't want to have all the answers either.

"Did, um–" Emmett starts and then stops, throwing back his shot before rolling the empty glass between his hands. He clears his throat and then looks at me. "Did Edward ever talk about his father's death?"

"Yes." I pause, staring past Emmett's head to the family portrait Edward had always insisted we tack onto the wall wherever we lived, even though he would never talk about his family. I move my gaze back to Emmett. "He died in 1965, icy roads; he flipped into a ditch." There's an uncomfortable silence and my leg starts jiggling; I can't help looking back into the toothy smile of a two-year-old Edward. I'd always wanted our children to look like him. "Why?"

Emmett puts the glass down. "Did you know my father and Edward's father were friends?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I mean, I think Edward might have mentioned it." I rub my forehead and want Emmett to just spit it out. I'm getting rather impatient for this fucking explanation.

"They, ah… they worked together at SciTech." Now Emmett's rubbing his forehead, starting to shift like he can't quite find the words. "They were put together on this top-secret project in 1957 with eight other scientists."

"SciTech, the pharmaceutical company?"

Emmett looks down at the floor and grins. "Yeah, the pharmaceutical company." He shakes his head to clear the thought and then looks back at me.

"What's so funny?"

"I forgot that's what they're known for."

"How can you forget? You work there!" I feel angry all of a sudden, like the one thing tying me back to Edward is now just a fucking joke to the only person I respected enough to treat like family.

Emmett's grin falters and then disappears as he holds out a hand as if to touch me, but then I flinch and it stays there, useless. "So anyway, 1957, ten scientists, top secret. You got that?" I nod, not trusting myself to speak anything without this bitter anger I'm trying to just swallow away. "In fifty-nine, there were eight scientists left; of the two who were gone, one had had a stroke, while the other, the most brilliant, had been terminated." He pulls at his collar and then looks around. "Wow, it's hot in here."

"No, it's not," I state. "It's twenty fucking degrees outside and I don't have enough money to make it feel like a sauna."

"Well, I'm fucking sweating," Emmett mumbles, shifting around while taking his beefy arms out of a fitted leather jacket. When he's finally free, I spy his underarm sweat stains and let him win this fight. He wipes his brow and then rests his forearms on his knees; I sit up straight and wait. "They were doing chemical reactions, cell division, shit like that." Emmett looks over towards me, this pained look on his face. "Really fucking heavy stuff for fifty-nine."

"So?"

"So the fired scientist was royally pissed for having been fired off of his own goddamn baby of a science project – and he tampered with the data."

"Yeah?"

Emmett looks at me and then breathes heavily out of his nose. "Bella, he went into the lab when no one was there and _fucked around_ with nuclear physics." I try to look away, anywhere but at eyes that I don't want to recognize as this kind of messenger. "Do you understand what happens when you do that? There are explosions, fatal chemical reactions, cell division." He stops, shakes his head like he can't quite believe it either. "Molecular mutation."

"Molecular mutation?" I parrot, the words feeling heavy and foreign in my mouth. "What the hell does that mean?"

"There were four scientists there that day, okay? Add in one lab assistant and a janitor and you have six people who witnessed this rather benign explosion. It was a small fire, really, easily extinguished by the lab assistant and then forgotten by the four scientists working that night. The cleanup quietly disposed of by the janitor." He stops and scoffs, like he's back in that room with those men reliving it.

"Emmett?"

He snaps out of his daze and looks back at me. "Yeah?"

"What does this have to do with Edward?"

He smiles real wide, his dimple boring a hole in the left side of his face. "Everything."

"But this happened in 1959."

"Exactly." He pauses, shifts again so he's more comfortable on the couch. "Like I said – six people. Aro Valenti, the janitor," he holds up his index finger, "Garrett Kennedy, the assistant," adds his middle, "John and Margaret Hale," ring and pinky, "Jonas McCarty," his thumb, "and Carlisle Cullen," he finishes with his left index finger. He waggles them a little before dropping his hands completely. "We don't know _exactly_ what happened, but it's commonly accepted that these six people contracted some sort of potent virus that then latched onto their cells and heavily altered their DNA."

"Molecular mutation," I mumble distractedly.

"Right," Emmett adds. "It was like this slow-spreading cancer that went undetected for _years_ until…" he trails off, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Until what?" I jump in.

"They started showing effects." Emmett shrugs.

"What do you mean _effects_?"

"Their powers, Bella." He says it so plainly, so obviously, that I fall back against the cushions and try to concentrate on my breathing. "Sooner or later they all realized that they'd each developed some sort of supernatural ability." I just stare at him until he continues. "Garrett could touch fire, um, John could blend into his surroundings, you know, like a chameleon. Margaret had this aura-thing that she could kind of, like, touch people and it would surround them. My dad had incredible strength and then Edward's dad had speed, faster than you could even see."

"And Aro?" I swallow, needing to know all the details even though they don't make sense.

Emmett's gaze hardens and I see his jaw come out like he's biting down really hard against his teeth. "Aro started to de-age."

"De-age?"

"Every day that passed made him a day younger."

"But how is that possible?" I can hear my voice getting frantic, but I can't stop the question.

"How is any of it possible?" Emmett laughs, but I don't understand what's funny. "How should I be able to do this?" He lifts up the coffee table and then holds it mid-air. Both shot glasses are perfectly stable, no ripple in what's left of the whiskey. When I look back at Emmett, there's no strain in his arm, no neck veins popping out with the exerted effort. I hear the soft thud as the table hits the carpet and then my mouth pops open. "DNA is powerful, Bella. Whatever the parent has is then passed onto the offspring."

"And you're–"

He nods. "The offspring."

"But how? What?" I grab the Jameson and take a huge sip before wiping the back of my hand against my mouth. The whiskey burns as it falls down my throat. "Edward's a… whatever you are?" I don't even hear the slip as it comes out of my mouth.

The dimple comes out and then disappears just as quickly. "We like to call ourselves supes."

"Supes?"

"Yeah, supes. You know, supernatural, superhuman, superhero?"

"Superhero? You're telling me that my dead" – I choke up and then keep going – "fucking fiancé was a superhero? That he wore spandex clothing and a mask?" My voice has gotten higher and higher with each accusation until I slam the whiskey against the coffee table and push my finger in Emmett's face. "That he fought for justice with his superhuman abilities?" I am not at all drunk enough for this and don't quite know how to approach this new information without blatant hostility. Except I can't muster up enough anger to stay angry; instead, I feel dizzy and allow myself to fall back against the sofa. I wishfully wonder what the hell I could have taken for this kind of bad dream to play out in such a fashion.

"Bella?" Emmett questions.

"This isn't a joke," I say after thirty seconds of awkward, heavy silence. It's not a question because I already know the answer.

"No."

I rub my forehead and grit my teeth. "Why are you telling me this now? Why after so much silence would you–" I feel this sob come up through my throat and drop down like I'm having a panic attack to stop whatever's going to happen. I wish the solution was that simple.

I hear Emmett shift closer, hear his heavy sigh, and then feel a warm hand rub up and down my back. "You have to understand that being a supe is pretty damning information." His voice and ministrations pause for just a second before he finds the right words and continues. "The fact that we have enemies while masked is practically inconsequential when we hide so much of ourselves so that we're _able_ to walk around and live normal lives." He pauses again and then his hand slips completely off my shoulder. I look up to find him staring at the wall. "We can't choose who we are, or what we can do, but we can choose who gets hurt in the process." He looks back at me and shrugs. "Maybe it sucks and maybe it's fucking unfair, but like hell am I not going to do everything I can just to make sure my family is safe."

I feel myself nod, then blurt out something just so Emmett will stay on the couch, even though I don't even know if he's thinking about leaving. "How come you told me all this? Now, I mean, when Edward's already," I wave my hand in front of my face, not ready to say 'gone' even though the silence won't bring him back.

Emmett rubs a hand down his face before sighing loudly again. "Do you remember when I said that it took years for everyone's powers to show themselves?" I nod. "Well, by that time, Aro had already gone rogue – ran away, went into hiding, whatever. What's important is that no one knew that he'd been effected until late sixty-five, when he suddenly re-appeared and kindly" – he sneers that word, almost spits it out – "informed us that he had taken action towards his own personal retribution over the 'terrible' effects he had 'suffered' at our expense." He mimes those words and I wonder if it's what Aro actually said.

Emmett takes a deep breath before I prod him along. "And?"

"He cut Carlisle's brakes, Bella." And then I get it, start to understand a small part of just what the fuck is going on. "It was pretty clear that something had to be done." He shakes his head. "It suddenly became bigger than the four of them, bigger than some freak accident that could be brushed under the carpet and discussed in private amongst the people that it had happened to." He looks straight at me. "It was personal; Esme had a right to know what had happened to her husband."

"So… it… just happened after that?" Everything I thought I just understood has now been erased again. Emmett doesn't focus on the 'it' that I'm referring to, doesn't question or ask me to explain what the hell I think I'm talking about.

He shrugs. "Like I said, it was personal."

"And?" I prod, desperate for anything to tie the story Emmett's telling back to my present, a place where everything is now in past tense and wanted to's. He has a way of working around the answer, telling related facts that I don't really need to know at this exact minute. And right now, I just need to know why my almost-husband isn't the one telling me all of this.

"Hmm?"

"What happened?"

"Oh, right." He has the decency to look sheepish. "For one, Jonas sat down with Esme the way I'm sitting down with you right now, explained everything – the experiment, Carlisle's speed, Aro's message, everything. She was the one who actually thought up the idea for the coalition." Emmett chuckles and absentmindedly scratches his chin. "Garrett's wife, Kate, was brought up to speed and, little by little, the six of them took over SciTech."

"Wait," I stop him, throwing my palm up to emphasize my point. "They _took over_ SciTech? Why?"

"Well," he thinks a moment, "it's like being an agent for, like, the FBI or CIA or something. They" – he holds up air quotes – "work for the federal government, but if anyone lacking the appropriate clearance were to ask about said person, they would immediately cease to exist. You get what I'm saying? They're two different people. One person leads a normal life, has a wife, maybe some kids, works in, I don't know, real estate just to pay the bills. And the other knows how to fire a gun, has a codename, has probably killed another person so that they weren't killed first." He looks me straight in the eye. "And those two identities can never mesh."

"But–" I start to protest.

"But nothing," Emmett cuts me off, shaking his head. "Even in sixty-six when we started going public, not everyone was happy about it. We were seen as an interference no matter how many dollars saved or lives spared." I hear him breathe out through his nose. "But imagine going public? Then people _know_ who's saving them. And when they're not happy, guess who's getting blamed?"

"You." My voice is resigned, quiet.

"Exactly," he waves his hands in front of his body in a 'duh' gesture. "And not just our masks, either. _Us, me_. Emmett fucking McCarty. Who has a wife, children, parents. Who has friends and neighbors."

"So you took over a company?" It's still not making any sense to me.

"They needed a cover." Another simple statement that suddenly throws things into perspective. "And when the four of them made it to the top, Kate and Esme were hired in order to make the company appear more family minded."

"But wouldn't that have made it more obvious that something was up?" Emmett's description just makes me think of cattle: corralled and easy to catch.

"Yeah, I guess." He looks thoughtful and then shrugs. "John sold most of the company overseas in the late seventies, and then downgraded and moved SciTech to the building where Edward worked everyday."

"So, SciTech's a real company?" I can only envision spandex powwows amid ringing telephones and a Xerox machine.

"Well, yeah," Emmett laughs. "We all have legitimate jobs from a real company."

"But," I hedge.

"But we all work there for a specific reason. We're a family, Bella, we stick together. And no matter how much Edward hated himself for not being able to give you a normal life," he shrugs and shakes his head. "He did it because he didn't see another choice. If not for you, then for his father." He looks down at his watch. "Shit, it's late."

I don't see him look at me, but he's already up and pulling on his jacket when I speak. "Emmett?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." I can't even look at him when I say it, just twirl my engagement ring around my finger as he leans down to kiss me on the forehead.

"We're family, Bella."

I look up and nod as he walks to the door, smiling faintly as he throws one last glance over his shoulder as a temporary goodbye. I think we both know there are only questions from here on out, that I'll keep wanting to know more and more until I find all my answers, but that they'll have to wait until after I stand with people who've kept a secret for the five years I've known Edward, stand with them and watch as the only link between us gets lowered into the ground next to his father.

* * *

I don't know it then, but twelve days later a little blue line would change everything. I would cry for the first time since Emmett McCarty rang my doorbell the day Edward was killed and told me what Edward couldn't. After he explained who Victoria really was and why she shot Edward, and then after I'm given one of his Lycra uniforms in a private ceremony wrapped up like a veteran's flag. After I'm let in on who my friends really are and what they can do, and then after I walk to the closest comic book store and see that the only issue of Super Human Heroes™ is #7, The Messenger vs. Marathon Man. Only after all that would I finally sob for the person who I'd lost, for the future I would no longer have, for the baby growing inside of me that meant I was really, truly alone.

All because of a fucking drug store pregnancy test.

And after I cried so hard my chest hurt, I gave myself a headache, and then found snot all over my face, I would call Edward's mother to tell her the news. And then I would try to keep it together on the phone – even after I'd just cried so hard that I figured I didn't have any tears left – because I would realize that Emmett's right – we _are_ family now, bound together because of revenge enacted twenty-nine years ago. Even though Edward's gone, even though we never married, I am carrying _his_ child. And that has to mean something, or I don't have anything left.

But I still don't frame Edward's uniform when I can finally look at it without holding my stomach and gulping in air, red like the comic showed with a giant 'M' sewed onto the chest. In twenty years it might just get a new owner; The Messenger might just come back from the dead. And added to the yellow 'C' I will add a second letter – to remember.

_

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Voting starts July 15__th__ and runs until July 22__nd__ on the Superhero Contest page (fanfiction. net/u/2379475/). If you liked this, keep it/me on alert, as I'll be posting short companion pieces once the contest ends._


	2. Unaware

**A/N**: _Thank you to everyone (or maybe anyone?) who voted for "The Messenger"! In addition to this chapter, there will be four more companion pieces posted, all of which expand the original one-shot through different points of view or by giving a glimpse into the past and future. The rating for all five will remain M for language and theme._

* * *

Edward wakes up feeling tired and uncomfortable, his limbs heavy, stiff, and all but glued to the bed. When he begins to stretch, he immediately rubs his sore back and then winces as he kneads into a particularly stiff part of the muscle. When he pauses in thought, wondering _What the hell did I do?, _only his shoulders keep moving as he pushes into the tender skin of his lower back, the thin, white sheet slipping lower and lower against his lean frame. He cocks his head sideways for good measure, a, a, s if this common movement will suddenly answer his unvoiced question. When the woman beside him grunts unconsciously, arching her back against his shifted form, his concentration is broken and his hands still, his entire body moving so slightly that she becomes more important than protesting muscles. She sighs when she finally feels his leg and then breathes contentedly, no longer showing any signs of movement.

As he fingers the edge of her shoulder blades, one side of Edward's mouth quirks up in a smile. He definitely remembers why the hell he's sore right now, can't help but look at the raw skin on her upper back – already red and welted – as a standing testament to their late-night activity. It looks like some kind of painful rash, and he thinks she would be wincing right now if only she were awake. He can only imagine how even his soft stroking would be more uncomfortable than pleasant to skin so irritated. But all she does is curl her shoulders in as an unspoken request for him to stop; he knows she's too tired to do much else.

It's only January second, but Edward likes to go to the office as much as possible, likes to be in that room with every other supe he knows just so they can be _ready_ – even if that want takes him away from Bella. So even though they both knew that he'd have to be showered, dressed, and out the door by eight o'clock, he let her take what she needed the night before – even when that last time found them falling off the bed at two in the morning and finishing up against the rough rug on the floor. Four times might be starting to feel like 'too much' at twenty-six, but it's worth it to him because he can do something for her, something no one else gets to see, taste, touch, or smell.

Edward trails a finger down her waist and then stalls at her hip, placing just enough pressure so that he can lean in, but not enough to wake her. He licks his lips and puts a soft kiss in the hollow space between her jaw and neck because, even though Bella's asleep, he swears her pulse speeds up for that one single second. It's his favorite way to start the day.

Forty minutes later, h, , fdskal;'fk e sits in the curl of her sleeping form and repeatedly strokes from the middle of her forehead, behind her ear, and then down her neck. She doesn't wake up – she never wakes up – but he likes to feel her skin, feel her pulse thrumming through her veins. It calms him and reinforces why he still does what he does, why he keeps the most important part of himself a secret to the most important part of his life.

Edward will tell Bella who he really is one day. The same day he models his uniform and returns the necklace he accidently took the first day he met her. It was the first day he saved her, and the first moment he fell for her, but it's not the first day that _she_ met _him_ – not officially and not without a mask – So he runs his fingers across her skin and whispers 'I love you' right before he kisses her goodbye and good morning in the same breath. He can't fathom a world without her, and so he does everything he can just to keep her safe, even if that means not saying a word.

He looks at the calendar on his way out the door and taps a day ten spaces away. He can't wait to see her in the five thousand dollar dress she doesn't know he paid for while q w she walks down an aisle – _the_ aisle.

What he doesn't know is that he'll never see that dress or get to that aisle. He won't even walk back through the front door.

* * *

The moment the gun's fired, Edward doesn't hear a whistle like he's supposed to. He doesn't see the bullet, race after it, or stop it from reaching its target because he's faster and can. All he's focused on is that short, blunt bang as a large amount of air pressure forces a tiny bullet down the small cylindrical barrel of the .38mm gun pointed directly at him. There is no Doppler effect, no slow motion – just noise he can feel as it hurtles toward him. Edward likens it to feeling human, so vulnerably human, for the first time in his now short life.

He can't outrun the bullet this time because instead of fleeing away from the shot, he turns. He doesn't think, he _does_. And right as he sees who's doing the shooting, who's supposed to be on his side – _their_ side – he feels the stab, feels the blood, and then finally allows himself to stagger back and fall over. He briefly wonders if his father ever got to feel this way, ever got the chance to _know_ who the fuck wanted him dead so badly that they went so far as to kill him.

But when Edward sees the blood on his fingertips, feels its wetness and swears he can almost smell the iron, the thought escapes him and he doesn't think about his father or his mother. Not even the person who has rushed toward him and started talking is important – because everything's blurry and muted and then it all goes black. There's only one person he's missing as his heart stutters and slows and stops.

He thinks of Bella and wonders if this would have felt different had she been awake this morning to kiss him back.


	3. Hunger

**A/N:** _A picture of Victoria's gun is on my profile._

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* * *

_

Victoria knew that Mark wasn't her daddy because her mommy didn't know who her daddy was either. That's what she was told on her fifth birthday – because five made Victoria a big girl, and being a big girl meant that she could know stuff she hadn't known when she was four. Things like you couldn't pee in your bed if you wanted a present from Santa, or that when mommies go into their bedroom, not-daddies like Mark are giving them time-outs. Time-outs weren't fun, and if she had to sit in a room with her best friend James and not get to play with him like Mommy couldn't play with Mark, then Victoria thought she might moan like her mommy did too.

Victoria knew that Steven wasn't her dad because her mom always told Aunt Elizabeth that no decent man ever wanted to marry a twenty-six-year-old waitress with a nine-year-old daughter – no matter how smooth her legs were or how perky her tits had stayed after breastfeeding. Victoria didn't really know what tits were, but she was smart enough to realize that Steven only came over to their apartment at night and was gone by morning. And she always noticed that her mom wore her clothes just so and teased her hair just right so that she looked as young as the teenagers she tried to hang around with during her shifts at the diner. Victoria knew that her mom was older than the age she told everyone, but she never said anything when she was introduced as a younger sister instead of a daughter. Even though she didn't really like Steven all that much, he made her mom happy, and that was what was most important. And sometimes, she really just wanted a dad.

Victoria knew that Peter wasn't her father because after he married her mother and moved them both to his house in the suburbs, he told her that she could _call_ him dad or daddy or pop or whatever 'the kids these days' were 'throwing around' – but that he would never try to take the place of her biological father. Victoria didn't understand what the word biological meant until she looked it up in the dictionary and came across the word genetically, and that just confused her further so she didn't think about it anymore. Peter was older than her mother, but her mother always complained that she felt as old as Peter anyway, even if she was only thirty and younger than all of Victoria's friends' mothers. Peter had gray hair and a nose trimmer, and both his kids were so old that they had already graduated college, so Victoria guessed that's what made him old. He didn't look old, though, just happy all the time, and he made her mother laugh like she'd never laughed before – a _real_ laugh, not one of those fake giggles she now knew was part of something called flirting – and that meant that it didn't matter how old Peter was or how young her mother wished she were. Victoria finally had a _father_, and that's probably the best present a thirteen-year-old could get.

When her mother quietly knocked on Victoria's door and acted all strange and fidgety, Victoria knew that she was done for. It didn't matter that she'd washed her sheets right after James had finally left her house, or that she'd put all three used condoms and their wrappers in a plastic Ziploc baggie and then threw everything away at school. Her mother just _knew_, because mothers knew everything. But then her mother said that Peter loved her like his own daughter, as much as any stepfather could love a stepdaughter, and that he wanted to adopt Victoria and make the three of them a 'real' family. So she just nodded and said sure, because what else was there to say? She was fifteen, and her mother still thought she was a virgin. What the hell did a piece of paper matter compared to the fact that she had really wanted to wait, but that she loved James so much her chest hurt and made her do stupid things she couldn't tell him she would always regret?

When her mother started crying during her high school graduation, Victoria almost started to cry too. Then she noticed that her mother wouldn't stop talking to Lorraine, as if James hadn't dumped Victoria just three weeks prior, as if the two of them were oblivious to the fact that their two children couldn't even been in the same room with each other because one of them wanted more than the other could give. But maybe they didn't know, maybe it was too soon or Victoria was too good of an actress, maybe they didn't think to look passed each other's faces and see that James was sucking the face off his new girlfriend while Victoria merely smiled politely at every student she walked by without noticing any of them. When she got home that night just before curfew, she found a diamond necklace and a note from Peter: _To say that I'm proud of you is a vast understatement. I know that you may not wear it, but I thought you might like something else around your neck to make new memories. Love, Dad._ And as she unhooked the cheap necklace James had given her two years prior, Victoria couldn't stop her tears. She could never figure out how her father knew exactly what to say.

When her mother blessed her search for her biological father, Victoria didn't think her mother had really thought of the consequences. She hadn't really, either. She'd simply brushed off the thirty-something man who had casually approached her in the café where she worked as fucking crazy. No way was this guy her father, no way had this man slept with her sixteen-year-old mother in 1969, no way had this person even _been_ at Woodstock nineteen years ago. But she _was_ curious, if a little freaked out. That curiosity told her to at least ask her mother what she could remember about her father, but there wasn't very much _to_ remember. His name was Aro, and he had a little mole behind his left ear and a Maine-shaped birthmark to the lower right of his belly button. And then that curiosity went right over the edge when those three things turned out to be true, because what kind of man puts on this kind of prank? Then Victoria didn't have to be curious anymore because Aro told her everything that she wanted to know. He also told her things that she shouldn't have been made to care about and even things that were made to _seem_ true but weren't anymore. But Aro was her father – her _father_! – and that meant that Victoria listened without reservation or judgment, not knowing that there are just some things a daughter shouldn't have to find out the hard way – like how much of a bad person her father really is, or how some fathers should earn their title and not just have it handed to them.

It was with anger that Victoria listened to Aro's history with the men and woman who had changed him so irrevocably that he could never go back to normal. The scientists who had left him with an urgency to simply _do_ – because how many days did he really have left before he could no longer function as an adult? Who was going to take care of him then?

It was with trepidation that Victoria accepted an entry-level secretarial position at SciTech, knowing what she knew about the sons and daughters of those men and that woman, the sons and daughters who looked at her father as a monster. It scared her, knowing what she was going to do to one such son, and she didn't ask how in the hell she got the job. She didn't really want to know.

It was with excitement that Victoria first learned to fire a gun, and with giddiness when she started to actually hit her target from fifteen feet away. Her excitement only grew when Aro handed her a Smith & Wesson 642 and all she could see was paternal pride, oblivious to the look of retribution on his face, a look that she would later wish went unrecognized.

It was with one part anxiety and one part pure thrill that Victoria carried her unregistered firearm into work one cold January morning just as she had been practicing for the past few weeks. As she took the elevator to a floor that was not her own, she took deep breaths and imagined how Aro would look at her from now on. How _proud_ he would be. And, when she finally fired at a person she didn't really know simply because her _father_ had wanted her to, when Edward Cullen looked at her as if he couldn't quite understand why she had shot him, the only thing she could do was smile.

What Victoria refused to even consider, however, what she couldn't even begin to comprehend, was that Aro hadn't been telling the whole truth. That maybe he was too focused on vengeance to think clearly. That he was selfish and had slept with her mother to merely create some _thing_ and would always think of Victoria as a means to an end and never as an individual entity or as a daughter he was supposed to love.

What Victoria didn't realize was that she had been so wrapped up in the novelty of this man who had helped create her, that she had stolen a father from someone else, had unknowingly given Aro a revenge he'd already taken twenty-five years prior. She'd wanted so badly to make this man love her that she had completely forgotten the man who had never failed to prove his role in parenthood. A man who loved her unconditionally, fervently, and often times irrationally – even though she'd only met him eight years prior, even though he didn't even have to. _That_ man had always _chosen _to love her.

What Victoria had learned too late was that Aro had only used her because it had been so easy to let him.

The weight of Peter's necklace felt heavy against Victoria's throat as she watched a pregnant Bella Swan walk into the courtroom each day of her trial. It felt like she was suffocating.


	4. Wanting

Esme hadn't wanted another after David. Carlisle had – no matter how much he said otherwise – but Esme just couldn't put herself through that again. She couldn't try to conceive for seven years only to miscarry. She couldn't try again two years later, only to birth a son prematurely and then watch him struggle until he couldn't struggle anymore. She _wouldn't_. As much as she loved Carlisle, she had to put her foot down. All that stress and worry smoothed over by blissful hope… no matter what she told herself, it was never worth the heartbreaking devastation that inevitably blossomed. The pain a mother feels burying her week-old son for whom she has already grown to love and care for was something Esme never wanted to go through again. She just wasn't taking chances.

It was the McCarty's pregnancy that made her rethink her decision. Seeing Anne's rounded belly gave Jonas a glow Esme had only witnessed twice before when she had told Carlisle of his pending admittance to fatherhood. Although it had been four years of bringing lilies to David's grave each twelfth of November to commemorate his death – eight single flowers for the eight days she'd gotten to watch his tiny fingers through hospital glass – Esme still didn't believe she'd ever heal. But then she watched Carlisle hold his godson Emmett, watched him tear up as he gave her a little baby-handed wave, and she knew that she had to admit defeat.

Carlisle would never stop wanting a baby of his own, and for him, she could try.

What Esme should have found odd was how quickly she felt ill. She could barely get used to the idea of possibly becoming a mother before she was already on her knees each morning. Then her doctor had smiled at her as if no thirty-two-year-old had ever gotten pregnant, as if this single pregnancy were a benevolent gift from Jesus Christ himself, and she knew that something was either very wrong or very right. Esme had prayed, of course, had never stopped since the night she had first slept with Carlisle, but these prayers were now different. "Thank yous" and "I wills" replaced "pleases" and "I won'ts". She knew what could happen and she wasn't taking any chances. Maybe her doctor was right: God could give, but God could also take away.

On June 20th, 1962, Edward Anthony Cullen became her miracle baby. He was the one who survived all three trimesters and came out screaming. The one who lived to see his first birthday as healthy as a horse. The one who prospered and grew up exactly like his father. Except that he would never know his father, not the way that Esme had intended. Edward was just shy of two-and-a-half the day that she told him exactly what had happened to his father. Esme had stated, in her most level voice, how his daddy was faster than any human being, even faster than Superman. She had said how this specialness made a bad man angry and vengeful, and how this bad man had purposefully cut Carlisle's brakes so that his daddy, uncles, and aunts would pay.

She could have waited until Edward realized he was different from his best friends Emmett and Rosalie, when he could understand that they should have an uncle Carlisle just like he had an Uncle John and an Uncle Jonas. But she told him because he had reacted exactly as she suspected – by staring at her wide-eyed before breaking into a smile and giggling. His laughter was infectious and she had needed to hear it.

Esme thought herself a strong woman, a strong mother, and a strong widow, but being strong didn't bring her son's father back from the grave, and it didn't hold her late at night when she felt the weight of all her struggles bearing down upon her.

She was strong, but she wasn't whole.

Watching Edward grow up left her wanting, just as she imagined Carlisle had felt holding an infant Emmett. It was an overwhelming desire to _have_ that left her helpless. She simply couldn't give Edward everything that he wanted, no matter how many silent wishes he made on birthday candles, eyelashes, and shiny copper pennies. He didn't have to say anything for Esme to see that raw desire he only showed when he thought no one else was looking. And it didn't matter if he was five, thirteen, twenty-one, or twenty-four, breathless and giddy from the one-word answer that Bella had given him when he asked if she would marry him. Edward would always continue to _want_ the one thing that had been taken from him. Of that, Esme was certain.

* * *

After Esme heard the dial tone, she quietly placed the receiver back in its cradle – even though she was the only one home and didn't have to be so careful. She would have always treated Bella as her daughter, and had already done so since her only son had felt the overwhelming need to legally make it so. But now that woman, that almost-daughter, was carrying the last remaining link to Edward, to Carlisle… and that small bundle of cells _made_ her family in a way that couldn't be broken, no matter how many links were currently missing. But that still didn't erase the fact that this child, _her_ grandchild, would now grow up without, just as her son had.

Bella was strong, but even if she wasn't, Esme knew that she had no choice now. From one widow to another, she knew Bella wasn't whole anymore. Not even in twenty years would either woman look at Cullen eyes and fail to see exactly whom they'd been missing. Not even this new child could replace that void left first by Carlisle and then by Edward, that black hole into which everything gets sucked and only a hollow feeling remains.

Even though their grieving couple would soon become a group of three, each member would always look toward that cruel, disingenuous world and be left wanting. Esme had at least seen the look on Carlisle's face as he held Edward for the first time. He'd been happy then, not just for _a_ son, but for the one that he had not gotten to love in the same capacity, the one that he hadn't been able to cradle in his hands and love without bounds or reason. Even after everything, that one single moment was what Esme missed above all, that pride and helpless vulnerability she hadn't understood could happen to someone so strong.

In eight months and two weeks, she would again witness a birth. Esme would look at Bella and the fragile human her son had helped create, but she would be unwilling and unable to explain just what her new daughter was missing.


	5. Anniversary

**A/N:** _A picture of Bella's wedding dress is on my profile._

* * *

"Babe?" Jake asks me.

"Yeah?" I call over my shoulder, concentrating more than I probably should be on the grease stain still stuck to the baking sheet that he and Luke used this afternoon. I know that, on the few occasions that he _actually_ cooks, Jake will never wash what he dirties, but I thought that he at least listened to the repeated reminders I give on the importance of soaking things in hot water and dish soap. Then again, I've never actually _seen_ a pan soaking in the sink – let alone one in the drying rack – and so I don't know why I'm not surprised that burnt, greasy cookie dough will not come off after six hours.

"Do you think it's okay to bring expired sunscreen?"

"What?" I stop scrubbing at his question and try to push back hair that's now damp with sweat, but I only feel more moisture as tiny soap bubbles streak across my forehead.

"Sunscreen?" He pauses, and I turn my upper body around. He's holding up two sunscreen bottles I've probably owned for at least eight years. "They both expired in ninety-six but they're still pretty full so…"

"No, Jake," I laugh and go back to scrubbing. "If they expired four years ago then I'm pretty sure they're more toxic than beneficial."

"'Kay," he says before I hear two heavy thuds from the inside of the trash barrel. "I'll go add it to the list."

The floorboards creak under his weight until he's all the way down the hall. When the TV goes off, I know that Luke will either pout and sigh or whine loudly about it being too early for a ten-year-old to go to bed. Then Jake will issue a final "sorry, bud" before Luke's door shuts while he changes into his pajamas. It will take five minutes for Luke to pee, brush his teeth, and floss, and then five more while he tells Jake everything good that happened during the day. If I'm close enough, I'll hear Luke's door quietly click shut, and then the TV will turn back on and I'll spend the rest of my night trying to get Jake out of his clothes while he tries just as hard to keep them on. Even after two weeks of marriage, almost two years of living together, five years of dating, and seven years of knowing me, and by association Luke, Jake still claims that he feels uncomfortable around the boy he practically half-raised. But I know he really wants to adopt Luke, even if he won't actually _tell_ me, and I always think that even if I didn't really love him, that fact alone would seal the deal for me. Anyone who loves my son as fiercely as Jake does deserves to be loved in return.

When I hear the steady thrum of sports fans screaming eleven minutes after Jake left the kitchen, I smile. Then I put the pan in the sink, take off my rubber gloves, and walk down the dark hallway, Jake's head and shoulders my beacon of light. It isn't what I thought I'd have, but I really kind of love my routine.

* * *

I'm putting back the pieces of luggage I couldn't coerce Jake into filling when I trip over the corner of its box. I knew it was up here, unworn and still wrapped in the same tissue paper it'd been packed in by the employees of the bridal shop, but it's not a part of my life anymore and thus takes me by surprise. It no longer affects me day to day, no longer makes me tear up or curl into myself with just the thought of what I'd never be to a person who no longer was, but to say that I'm not curious would be total bullshit. I remember the way that dress made me feel, even if I can no longer recall the exact shade of white or the origin of the lace. That dress made me feel so beautiful that I didn't have to think twice about what I was going to do in it. I remember finally feeling worthy of Edward's love, like I could give him everything that he'd already given me for the first time in my life. And I wouldn't have to constantly second-guess myself in the process.

When I pull off the dusty cover and pull the tissue paper away, all I can do is slowly rub my fingers across the fabric and then lean over until my nose can find its muted scent. I breathe slowly, meticulously, bringing everything I'd forgotten or lost into me at the same time that I push everything those thoughts bring up back out. It's just me and that dress in our own little time warp bubble.

For the first time in five years, I let myself _feel_ without thinking, without worrying, without holding back. Nobody needs me up here because no one knows that I'm mourning. There isn't a grave to stand over, a necklace to absentmindedly rub, or a day on the calendar to make me silent and withdrawn. There are no hands to hold, backs to rub, or people to reminisce with because it's just me up here, just me and this damn dress that I didn't even get to wear.

"Bella?" Jake yells up the attic stairs, interrupting exactly where I knew I didn't want to go. "Did you get lost?" I start to reply before Luke cuts me off.

"Yeah, Mom," he giggles, "did you get lost?"

"No," I holler back. I try – and fail – to sound annoyed through the smile that curves across my face. "I'll be down in a minute." The doorbell rings and then I hear Luke yell "Grandma!" while I slowly sit back against my calves.

As I carefully fold up the dress and then close its box, I know that I won't be coming back here anytime soon. The dress symbolizes what was, not what is, and I no longer feel any attachment to what could have been, even though there will always be a part of me that's going to hold on and fight against every new memory that will inevitably push the old ones out.

After I hear the attic stairs slap into place behind me, I walk down the hall and into the kitchen, slipping my arm around Jake's warm body and then leaning into him as he registers my presence and slips one of his own arms around my shoulders. Esme is still in her winter jacket, laden down with cold weather accoutrements, but she's smiling and not even trying to undress. All three of us just watch Luke dance around the kitchen as he mimes the story he's telling. Then he gets too close to Jake and I'm suddenly alone as Luke's giggles fly down the hallway, followed closely by Jake's heavy gait.

As Esme pulls me into a hug, I feel happy, and safe, and I know that Edward's not even up there with that dress, nor is he stuck in the necklace I didn't even realize he took until after he was already gone. I see him every day in our son, in the way that Emmett jokes and Jake just laughs along, in how Esme squeezes me tight against her before pulling me back and looking me straight in the eye.

"I'm so happy for you, Bella," she says, turning away and wiping a hand across her eye. I don't have to say anything because I know that she means it, and that meaning it doesn't take anything away from how fiercely I loved her son or how devastated we both were when he died. It simply means that we've moved forward, not on, and that Edward is wherever we are, even if we no longer think of him every moment just to remind ourselves that he's missing.

He's just Edward, a person who I really wish my son could have known.


	6. Moment

**A/N**: _This is the last chapter. Thanks again to anyone that reads and reviews. :)_

* * *

His pen taps like a metronome, counting time each second that it happens, but never beginning or ending in any kind of discernible place. Every single female in Professor Whitlock's Introduction to American History class is a freshman. And every single one of them is more concerned and enthralled by Edward Cullen's tapping pen than they are with the first of two History requirements they will need to pass before they can graduate. None of them realize that Edward has only enrolled in Professor Whitlock's class because he had an open spot in his schedule, or that American History is the only historical section the college offers that he hasn't already sat through for an entire semester.

This class means very little to him as anything more than three credits, but it will come to mean a whole lot more for them – just because he's in it.

The freshman girls like to stare at Edward's pen and throw quick, surreptitious glances at the odd color of his hair as it catches the weak January light and forms a halo above his face. Then they move to the square of his post-pubescent jaw, and finally sigh at the way he laughs openly at each one of their professor's corny jokes. His deep, throaty _hah_ momentarily distracts them from even understanding the pun, but when they focus on Edward's laugh, they share a small smile too.

When the class period ends, Edward stretches his legs from underneath the bolted-down seats and then goes right up to Professor Whitlock and shakes his hand. He talks animatedly, and then they watch as Professor Whitlock throws his head back and laughs louder than Edward had not ten minutes prior. As soon as the last student leaves, Edward walks down the hall next to their professor –

_Their professor!_ they think. _How very collegiate_, they add, quickly erasing their smiles of giddy pleasure.

– and each female waiting outside the classroom door watches unabashedly as two sets of legs take long strides down the hallway before finally turning the corner and disappearing.

It doesn't take long before the girls scurry off toward the cafeteria, study lounges, and occupied dorm rooms to share their news. They want open ears and wide eyes when they breathlessly say with whom they just had class. Although it's only been a few short months since they've lived on campus, they already know that Edward Cullen is a legend – even if he doesn't know it himself.

* * *

Edward quickly slams the storm door behind him, shaking his shoulders and rubbing his hands together in a last-ditch effort to try and drum up enough heat for it to feel just a little bit warmer than negative three. He knows he'll start to complain of the heat and humidity come June, but it's fucking _cold_ on the East coast and he silently curses his grandparents for choosing to start their lives in America in suburban New Jersey.

_Really?_ he wonders absentmindedly, _they couldn't have traveled just a little bit further? Someplace where it isn't so goddamn cold in the winter?_

"Fucking heat," Edward mumbles under his breath, kicking the hot water heater as he shivers his way into the kitchen. As he fills a teakettle, the only response he gets are flakes of paint that cover the floor. No puffs of steam, no hiss of hot water, and especially no heat. He shakes his head and turns around to place his curved hands on the teakettle.

He doesn't even know why he still bothers to come home anymore, especially now that the only thing giving him a reason to doesn't even fucking work when he needs it the most. He knows his mom still gets lonely since he permanently moved out two years ago, and god knows his piece of shit house feels emptier ever since Em and Rose moved out after their wedding six months before, but Edward is stubborn.

_Just like your father_, he hears in his mother's voice.

He ignores it. He doesn't _want_ to admit that he's lonely, because what kind of twenty-one-year-old college senior in his last semester honestly feels _lonely_?

Edward sips his scalding hot chocolate and wills himself to remember how much he hates his apartment come May. When its spring and he feels false hope that things will get better just because the days are warmer and longer. He can afford to pay the three months of rent before his lease runs out anyway, regardless of where he spends his free time. But he won't break his lease yet; he'll suffer until April 30th and then, come May 1st, be rid of this peeling, cracking, unlevel shithole for good.

Because he would honestly rather forfeit his security deposit than be forced to come home – _alone_ – to his half-furnished house that always feels one-third empty. And doing what's sensible feels like a cop out, like he's giving up just because he's lonely and unhappy.

And Edward won't admit that he's either.

_My life sucks_, he thinks bitterly, trying to salve his burnt tongue by scraping it across his teeth.

He finally smiles as he conjures up Emmett's voice in his head, still wincing in anticipation for a heavy backslap that won't come. "Bro! You're a fucking superhero! Just flash your cape and you'll get all the pussy!" Emmett would say, raising his eyebrows suggestively before slapping Edward in between his shoulders. It had happened so many times that Rose had stopped slapping him on the head and had taken to simply ignoring him. That's why they worked together, honestly. Rose was the only one who could tolerate someone who was six-five and still acted like a child.

With the thought, Edward glances around his empty kitchen and sighs, his smile quickly replaced by a frown. He dumps the hot chocolate down the drain and then grabs his school bag. At this point, he doesn't even need to bring his overnight items in order to spend the night at his mother's; he's already done this so many times that he's learned to buy in pairs.

The slap of the storm door follows him down the sidewalk.

* * *

After Edward honks the horn twice, he fiddles with the radio until he finds Emmett's favorite station. It's just the two of them tonight, and everyone within the group knows that their two powers can handle almost anything. If it's something bigger, they'll call Rose, or maybe even John or Garrett if they're needed. But mostly, it's just Edward and Emmett, cruising the streets like they're still seventeen and un-tethered to the world around them.

The storm door slams shut and Edward looks up, Emmett's smiling face growing larger as Rose's stoic mask stays stationary. They've done this thousands of times before, but somehow Edward feels different watching her, like maybe he finally understands how lucky Emmett is just to have someone to come home to. Not for the first time, he wants to feel anger at the love he watched grow and, not for the first time, he can't.

Edward can't say anything about how it's only easy to take the overnight shift because your other half knows exactly what you're doing when you leave at nine pm and then don't come back until four or five in the morning. They know because you picked out the van together for this exact purpose. You've both huddled in the back of an unheated vehicle and listened to the police scanner together. You've dressed up in your lycra uniforms together.

You're both in love – together.

He can't say anything or even get a little bit angry because he wants what Emmett and Rose have. But they're too far into it to realize that their honeymoon phase should have only lasted six months into their relationship, not seven whole years _and_ a marriage. He sees how the two of them are just so damn happy even when one leaves and the other has no choice but to stay behind and worry.

Edward can't get angry because they don't even realize that the most secret thing about them isn't even a secret. They get to be superheroes together, too. So when he looks at them, that's the only thing he sees – a lack of secrets.

When Emmett's door slams shut, the only thing Edward does is turn toward his best friend and smile.

* * *

At close to three am, Triple X strips out of his spandex and gives The Messenger an eyeful. Then it's Emmett who strolls out of the suspiciously unmarked van and walks into 7-Eleven, returning five minutes later with an armful of candy and a giant Slurpee. It's got The Messenger's masked face on it and Edward rolls his eyes, used to the ribbing. He and Emmett are always on Slurpee cups; it's when The Black Widow comes out of hiding that both men get Slurpees. Rose doesn't say it, but they know she likes to collect every series. Edward thinks it's vain; Emmett finds it cute.

When Emmett hears the opening chorus of his jam, he kicks Edward's leg and says, "Yo, turn that up."

Edward fiddles with the knob and that's when he sees her, getting walked by her Newfoundland at 3:07 in the morning. Emmett's rocking the van with his antics – god knows what the person working thinks is going on – and Edward still stares, transfixed by her buttoned-up coat and striped pajama bottoms. She's wearing shoes that look untied and her hair and loosely tied red scarf are whipping into her face with the wind.

She looks beautiful. But her dog is stubborn and for some reason, she has no idea that she's going to get hit by a car.

Edward doesn't either, not really anyway. He's not psychic, he can't hear better than a normal human, and he only has 20/30 vision. All he notices is that her dog is digging in its heels while she's pulling with everything she's got on its leash. She's almost bent in half six feet into the middle of the road, trying to move one-hundred fifty pounds of resisting weight. It's actually kind of funny, and so Edward smiles and turns around to get Emmett's attention (who's now back to being Triple X), just wanting someone else to see how absurd this whole situation is. But Emmett's in his own world, screaming along to the words while he air drums with Twizzlers.

As soon as he grabs Emmett's head to force him to look, they both finally see what's happened in the thirty seconds Edward has had his eyes away from the road. There's stereo-bass pounding down the otherwise quiet street. There's a car taking a corner too sharply. There's a girl in the middle of the street about to get hit by a–

"Oh, shit!" they both scream. Emmett's eyes go wide but only Edward moves, throwing the back doors wide open and then running straight for this beautifully oblivious girl.

He tackles her without meaning to, cradling her head in one hand while the other rests squarely over her sternum, fingers splayed as if all he has to do is hold her between two hands and then he won't break anything. She still smacks into the pavement, though, head bouncing down and then up again before her eyelids open, and Edward sees her eyes roll into the back of her head.

He hears the squeal of the tires as the car barrels down the empty street, and suddenly it's just the two of them breathing. Then her eyes open, focus, and Edward sees her trying to make sense of everything before he remembers that he's only wearing part of his uniform, that he was in such a rush to save her that he forgot to protect himself.

His eyes widen and he mutters "fuck" under his breath. He takes one look at the girl, one look back at the van, and then books it, just managing to lay her head on grass before slamming the van door shut behind him.

Emmett moves his eyes from Edward to the girl, back and forth, until he finally shakes his head. "What the fuck?"

He laughs while saying it, but Edward still gives him a dirty look before uncurling his legs and walking towards the passenger seat. He watches the girl as she orients herself to what just happened. Her dog licks her face, and she stands up with one last shake of her head. They watch her walk down the street before turning a corner. Then she's gone.

When Emmett starts the van, he simply drives Edward home, grabbing his shoulder affectionately before saying goodnight. Edward doesn't question how Emmett knows he's preoccupied (they usually stay out a couple more hours), just nods his head and walks slowly toward his front door. Only when the quiet rumble of the van engine is out of earshot does Edward finally uncurl his fist so that he can open his door. He hasn't noticed the warmed metal resting in his palm or the presence of his clenched fist for a full fifteen minutes. He just stands underneath his moth-ridden porch light and stares at a thin gold chain that he's never seen before. And on it, an insignificant charm of a small swan with folded wings.

He smiles.

* * *

He's visiting Jasper during office hours a week later when they hear a tentative knock on the door and both look up. After Jasper yells, "come in," Edward stands up and bids his favorite professor farewell as he walks toward the door. It's there that he sees her and, more importantly, allows her to see him in return. He's Edward now – not The Messenger – and so must force himself to keep the hand curled around her necklace fisted in his pocket. He wants so badly to tell her – but can't, or shouldn't, and probably won't.

Then she smiles – soft, shy, contagiously – and he knows that nothing will ever be the same.

He smiles back and feels his heart flutter all the way down the hall.


End file.
